Reading Time: 73 Minutes

Title: Hard to Kill
Author: Lalaith Quetzalli
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Established Relationship, Family, Romance, Slash
Relationship(s): Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Background Relationships
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Hate Speech, Violence-Graphic, Violence-Against Children/Child Abuse. Death-Minor Character, Discussion-Hate Crimes, Discussion-Miscarriage, Kidnapping, Murder, Racism.
Author Note: This story has a couple of cameos from “Criminal Minds” but it’s not really a crossover with that show. It starts on the TW show-finale, and goes all the way to the movie.
Beta: CorgiQueen14
Word Count: 72795
Summary: Mieczyslaw Jan Gajos Stilinski was born into a lineage of power, and duty. With the power and will to carry on the legacy of his ancestors, and more. And no matter who gets in his way, who tries to push him back, to take him down, in the end he will always be the last one standing. For even if he might be only human, in this world of magic and monsters, he knows that humans can sometimes be stronger than even gods…
Artist: Halestrom

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Prologue.

The sound of a single shot breaks the tense silence of the moment.

It’s followed by a single voice:

“What have you done?!”

The surprise isn’t in the question, but in who asks it, and who it’s directed to…

“Stiles!” Scott yells.

“What?!” Stiles demands as he lowers his gun and straightens up from his position.

“You shot her!” Scott snaps.

“I did,” Stiles nods, because that’s obvious enough.

“You killed her!” Scott yells, louder.

“Yes,” Stiles nods again because, duh!

Even before the FBI, he was taught to shoot by his dad. He was also taught several very important rules, among them the fact that shooting must never be the first option, but the last; though if he has to pull out his gun, if he must shoot (if he’s been forced to that point) then he shoots to kill because he might not have a second chance to try.

“You didn’t have to kill her!” Scott snaps.

“Didn’t I?” Stiles honestly doesn’t understand. “Scottie, she was trying to kill you! She’d just shot Alex! It’s a miracle the kid’s alive!”

Rather, it was thanks to Malia tackling him down and out of the way of the bullet in the last possible second, but the fact remains…

“That doesn’t mean you have to murder her!” Scott insists.

“Killing in self-defense isn’t murder,” Stiles retorts.

“What self-defense?” Scott demands. “She wasn’t shooting at you!”

Stiles just blinks because, what kind of fucked up logic is that?! Also, no, she wasn’t shooting at him right that second, but she’s certainly been shooting at him, at pretty much all of them, time and again for the past two years!

“Scott…” the human begins, trying to make the wolf see reason.

“No!” The alpha snarls. “I’ve told you. We Do Not Kill! There’s always another way!”

Here they go again…

Scott’s speech goes on for several minutes. Or at least, that’s how long it takes him to realize that no one’s actually paying much attention to him. Especially not Stiles.

“You’re a murderer Stiles!” Scott yells at his once best-friend.

Once but not any more, not for a long time now…

“I told you already, killing in self-defense isn’t murder,” Stiles states, and before Scott can insist he adds. “And you know what? I don’t regret it.”

He turns around and leaves before the so-called alpha can start his speech all-over again.

“You know, this kind of thing cannot be put to a normal, human court,” Lydia points out softly. “But even if it could, no jury would condemn Stiles. He did what he had to do.”

“We do not kill,” Scott insists, mulishly.

Lydia says nothing, just shakes his head.

“Lydia’s right, you know?” Liam points out. “Stiles did what he had to do, and no jury that knew the truth about things, would condemn him for it.”

Scott grits his teeth, he’s so furious, and his beta doesn’t understand why.

“We’ll see about that,” the alpha mutters under his breath.

Liam has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, though he has a feeling that when… if, they ever find out, they’re not gonna like it.

xXx

Stiles isn’t even surprised when Lydia breaks up with him. Truth is, he’d seen it coming a mile away. They’ve technically been together since he was rescued from the Ghost Riders in their last year of high-school, but in reality they’ve spent most of that time apart. Lydia in Cambridge, Massachusetts, attending MIT, while he’s in DC, attending GWU. Until Monroe and her army became enough of a threat for all of them to close ranks and gather in order to be able to fight her again they hadn’t really spent a lot of time together, and even then…

They’d only had sex a few times, early on in their relationship, always in her bedroom, as she insisted that his was ‘too messy’ for her to feel comfortable there. They barely went out together on dates, always to high-end places, and Lydia insisted on having veto power over what he wore whenever they did. She absolutely refused to be seen with him when he was in his loose jeans, graphic tees, sneakers and flannels; and he knows that a lot of people think he dresses like that simply because he has no fashion sense, but he happens to like dressing like that! He likes loose and comfortable clothing, and certainly likes his graphic tees; also he has a variety of flannels for every weather, and the long sleeves are really good for hiding things whenever he needs to have weapons or tools on him (which, their life being what it is, is all the time!).

It almost feels, in some ways, like the two of them stayed together more out of habit than any real love on either of their parts. It’s… sad, in a way. Stiles spent so long believing he was in love with Lydia, that she was the be-all, end-all, the love of his life. And yet… in many ways, the reality never really lived up to the dream. He supposes, it was never going to. Because in his dreams, Lydia was this gorgeous, charming genius who only pretended to be shallow, cruel and pretentious to keep a facade as the popular queen bee. But truth is that while Lydia is truly a gorgeous, charming genius, she’s also often shallow, pretentious, and at times quite cruel. Stiles isn’t even sure if she loves him, or if she just… settled, for him. Not wanting to be alone and afraid that her status as a banshee would make it harder for her to find someone else.

In the end, Stiles pays very little attention to any of that. He just agrees when Lydia tells him it’s over (he can tell that his easy acceptance irks her for some reason, but he doesn’t bother to even try and find out why, exactly; she’s no longer his business, and that was her own choice!). In some ways it’s almost… freeing, not having to worry about fulfilling her expectations at any given time.

He decides to take the long way back to DC. It’s not like he even has to be back before classes begin, near the end of August, so he decides to make his way to NY first. The last thing he expects is to end up making the trip with none other than Derek Hale!

“I’m heading to the East Coast myself,” the wolf explains.

“And you’d go out of your way… wherever that way is, to drop me off in DC?” Stiles needs to clarify because, what the hell?!

“I’m heading to NY to see… someone.” Derek is somewhat vague in his explanation. “It’d be no hardship to take a longer route and drop you off in DC first.”

“What, you gonna visit some old friends?” Stiles asks conversationally.

“Something like that,” there’s something in Derek’s vague answers that keeps pulling at Stiles, and he doesn’t even know why.

“As it happens, I’m heading to NY, not DC.” Stiles says with a shrug.

“Oh…” that clearly throws off the wolf, and Stiles can tell he wants to ask for clarification, but doesn’t want to give Stiles an opening to want more answers himself.

“If you must know, I want to visit my favorite cousin and my godson, they live in New York.” Stiles explains. “Haven’t seen them since… well since I graduated high-school and took the time to visit them shortly before starting classes at GWU.”

That was also the time when he offered his condolences to his cousin, for the death of her mom in a car accident several months prior (he just hadn’t been able to attend the funeral, having been busy dealing with one of the many disasters that just kept happening in Beacon Hills.

“Oh… I didn’t know you had a cousin,” Derek admits.

“Not many do,” Stiles admits. “I mean, I’d say Scott knows… but I honestly doubt he remembers I ever told him about Mirele. She’s my only cousin, daughter of one of my mom’s brothers. Her son is also my one and only godson.”

It takes the pair of them almost a week to make it all the way from Beacon Hills to New York (they take turns driving, but they still take their time, stopping perhaps more often than entirely necessary and, at Stiles’ insistence, staying in at the very least semi-decent motels instead of just sleeping in the car while the other one drives through the night). Which serves to explain why it takes them six days to make it all the way to the East Coast.

It only takes them two nights before they’re falling into bed together.

The first night the sex is wild, hot, hard and fast.

The second night it’s slow, purposeful, tender, yet no less intense.

By the time they actually make it to New York, the two know each other in every way they can. It’s not even just sexually, but spending so much time just the two of them together, inside the car, with nothing and no one to distract them… they get talking in a way they never did before, not in all the years they’ve known one another. They found out how well they fit together,finally realizing how much they have in common. They don’t even need to talk about it before they agree to find a single-room apartment and stay together for the duration of Stiles’ vacation in NY. Stiles knows they’re probably going to have to talk about things at some point, About feelings and expectations and… everything else. But he supposes there’s time for that yet.

It’s until Derek’s stopping the Camaro that Stiles looks around, realizing that he never told the wolf where in NY he was going exactly, and yet they’ve managed to make it precisely to the right place… what are the odds…?

Stiles half steps, half trips out of the Camaro right as the front door of the house slams open and a tiny missile shoots down the front yard and straight to him:

“Uncle Miec! Uncle Miec! Uncle Miec!” The four year old cries out excitedly.

“Hey little one, how have you been?” Stiles asks as he picks the boy up, settling him against his hip.

The boy starts babbling a mile a minute at him, and while Stiles does make sure to keep enough of his attention on him to be able to react appropriately to everything his godson says; he’s also aware of Mirele as she steps out of the house, staring at him and then behind him, where he supposes Derek must be getting out of the car.

“Well, isn’t it a small world,” she deadpans.

Stiles is about to ask her what she means, when suddenly his godson starts twisting in his arms badly enough that Stiles almost drops him, and is forced to put him down eventually. Yet before he can ask what’s going on exactly, he gets the answer, in a most unexpected manner:

“Daddy! Daddy! You came!”

And there he is, Stiles’ smiling godson, the son of Stiles’ favorite (and only) cousin, throwing himself at one Derek Hale and calling him daddy. It’s quite a miracle Stiles doesn’t faint right then and there.

xXx

Derek Hale is a daddy.

What’s more, Derek Hale is Stiles’ godson’s daddy.

Stiles’ mind throws up the equivalent of a blue screen of doom after that particular revelation.

“He’s hot like burning, isn’t he?” Mirele stands right beside him, practically whispering in his ear, as he stands by the door to her back porch, watching Derek and Eli playing in the backyard.

“Mir!” Stiles can barely keep himself from shrieking. “He can hear you!”

“So what?” she shrugs.

Stiles had totally forgotten how shameless his cousin could be. Not that Stiles has much in the way of shame himself, but still.

“I mean, he was hot five years ago, not gonna lie,” Mirele adds for good measure. “But there’s just something about that face and those muscles… he’s certainly aged well. Also, I can only imagine how that stubble feels…”

Stiles goes beet-red at that. And so does Derek!

“You know…” Stiles exhales in realization.

“Doesn’t take a genius to see it,” Mirele shrugs. “The way he keeps glancing at you, as if to make sure you’re still here, still close. And the way you two almost… orbit each other, whenever you so much as stand in the same room. It’s kinda cute, actually.”

Stiles didn’t think he could blush any more than he already was, and yet…

“Just tell me one thing Miec,” Mirele says, abruptly serious. “Are you happy?”

Stiles’ expression actually softens at that. Despite how much his cousin might push his buttons sometimes, he does love her dearly…

“Very much,” he nods. “He’s… everything I’ve ever dreamed of, you know? Everything I never dared ask for. So much has happened the last few years, some moments that have been absolute hell, and yet I cannot help but think that looking at him, having the opportunity to touch him, to kiss him, just to see him smile… it somehow makes it all worth it.”

“Oh Miec… you always have been a hell of a romantic, haven’t you?” Mirele murmurs with a soft smile of her own.

And of course Derek too has managed to hear every single word.

It’s not so bad though. They end up not needing to have that ‘talk’ after all. Everything is made quite clear when, hours later, they make it to the place they’re renting for the summer and Derek makes a point to undress Stiles slowly, kissing and licking and nipping at every inch of skin as it’s revealed.

Neither of them really say ‘I love you’ at any point, but they don’t really need to. They understand one another just fine.

xXx

After spending the rest of his summer break in New York with some of his favorite people, after getting a taste of what the rest of his life could be like (and it’s a life he knows he’d love!), Stiles finds his way to DC; having left Derek back in New York, where he’s decided to stay at least for the time being in order to spend more time with his son. Derek actually offered to move to DC with him for the year, but Stiles turned down his offer, knowing the wolf truly wanted to be able to spend more time with his son, now that he wouldn’t be putting him and his mother at risk if he stuck around, and he deserves the chance. Also, it’s a good excuse for Stiles to visit all of them more often. And of course, he’s still planning to spend all his school breaks in NY.

So Stiles makes it to DC, to the studio apartment he rents a few blocks away from campus. He’s about to start his final year of college (having taken enough extra credit and summer courses to cross a year from his college career entirely) and the tiny apartment is the cheapest he could find, while still staying fairly close to the university campus; also, it’s easier to come and go from there, than from the actual school dorms. Which has been a necessity while he and the pack were dealing with Monroe and her minions; which is thankfully over now.

Stiles stands by what he told Scott back in Beacon Hills. He doesn’t regret killing Monroe and he never will. If anything, he regrets the woman became the kind of person that needed to be killed in order to stop her from doing any more evil. Perhaps if they had been better, if they’d protected her, and the other humans (especially those she managed to recruit into their awful army) better, she (all of them) would have never become such a fanatic, worse than even Kate Argent in some ways. But then again, Kate took such pleasure from her hunts, she took her time, made elaborate, disgusting, plans… Tamora? She never bothered with such things. She was just interested in killing, in destroying, anyone and everyone she possibly could. She cared not for plans, or strategies, or for collateral… Stiles is pretty sure if he hadn’t taken the shot, if she hadn’t died when she did, it wouldn’t have been long before her actions lead to the outing of the supernatural as a whole in the worst of ways.

So no, he doesn’t regret killing Monroe. Two years he’s spent looking over his shoulders, continuously glancing at his phone, checking his messages, waiting for the next time she’d show up, the next time Scott would need their help… the next time she threatened his friends. Now that’s all over.

It’s all over, and yet for some reason Stiles doesn’t feel like he can quite rest just yet. He actually wonders what that’s about. He was pretty relaxed during his time in NY but not anymore. It’s as if something were putting him on alert. He’s not sure if it’s the place, or just the lack of a certain tall, dark and handsome wolf at his back… And not just because of how much he loves, beyond the sex, just sleeping with Derek but… he makes Stiles feel safe. In a way nothing and no one else can manage.

At least he only has one year of college left and then… Well, he has no idea what the hell he’s gonna do then. After more-or-less ruining an FBI Op to save Derek Hale, things weren’t easy for Stiles. It was only the fact the Op had been top-secret that kept the FBI from blacklisting him entirely. He still lost the internship, as well as any hope of ever joining any intelligence agency in the country.

When it first happened, when his bosses pulled him into an interrogation room the moment he set foot back in DC, he tried to call Rafael McCall so as to have someone who would back-up his explanation. It’s hard to get people to believe the supernatural is real when you’re so very human yourself, and have nothing supernatural on hand as proof. Agent McCall never answered his calls, nor his messages (much like his son, really). Without someone who might back his explanation, Stiles didn’t even try. And then he lost everything he’d worked so hard for.

The only thing he did not lose was his original scholarship to GWU (because the FBI couldn’t reveal what happened during the internship), though the loss of the FBI sponsorship meant his personal expenses went up, making it necessary for him to dip into his savings. It also means once he graduates from college he’ll have to look for an actual job, probably somewhere other than DC (even without an official blacklisting, it’s an open-secret the FBI no longer wants him, and that kind of fame… not many people will want him). Stiles knows chances are he’ll end up returning to Beacon Hills, working at the Sheriff’s Department.

It’s… It’s not that he has something against working there, or for his dad, not at all. Truth be told, Stiles always imagined doing that, eventually. But in his circumstances, going back feels like admitting defeat, like giving up a fight he isn’t sure why he’s even fighting still, and he hates that.

Also, he hasn’t told his dad about any of this, has no idea how to even go about doing it. Will he be disappointed in Stiles? Be angry that Stiles chose to pretty much ruin his own future out of loyalty to the pack? Will he be understanding, seeing why Stiles chose to do what he did? Will he see it as to be expected (he’s always seemed to like Scott so much, at times even more than Stiles himself!)? The thought he might see Stiles as a failure, a disappointment in any way, terrifies the young man.

Not for the first time, Stiles wonders about his future. He cannot help but feel like he’s being punished for being good, for being loyal to his friends, to the pack. For trying to do good…

“No good deed goes unpunished…” he mutters under his breath.

Never have those words felt more true than when he steps out of the apartment building to attend a late morning class, to find a group waiting for him on the street.

They’re not being too obvious about it. Only two people actually stand close to the building, but Stiles has spent years fighting for his life. He notices not just them, but also the ones standing at the mouth of the alley (in the opposite direction from the one he’d take to get to the college campus) and has no doubt there will be more waiting in the alley itself.

And it’s not even just that, even at a single glance, Stiles can tell they’re all armed.

“Mr. Stilinski?” the woman from the pair steps forth.

“Yes…?” Stiles doesn’t see the point in denying it.

“Agent Devereaux,” the woman states in a clipped tone, flashing a badge at him quickly before putting it away again. “We’d like you to come with us, please.”

She probably expects her move to have been fast enough that Stiles won’t be able to tell if her badge is fake or not. She clearly doesn’t know him. Stiles has known how to spot a fake badge, at a glance, since long before he was even offered the internship.

He never considers running. For one thing, there would be no point. He has no idea how many might be with this group, but he has no doubt there must be enough that they’d catch him before he made it to campus. And if by some miracle they don’t, what then? It’s not like he can keep running away from them forever. His best chance is to find out what they want; hopefully it won’t be anything too bad and he’ll be able to put the whole mess behind him… Who’s he kidding, there’s no way things will be that easy for him!

Of course he’s right.

The moment he steps into the mouth of the alley Stiles knows things aren’t just not going to be easy. Things are actually much, much worse than he expected. Because the ones waiting there for him, they not just aren’t agents, they’re hunters! (A voice in the back corner of his mind, which sounds suspiciously like Peter, asks him who he thought the guys were, exactly. He knew they weren’t agents, what else could they have been if not hunters?!) They’re armed, not just with guns, but two are carrying collapsible crossbows (he’s seen the ones Allison used to carry), others have batons, there’s even one at the back holding a cattle-prod!

Stiles knows in that moment his chances of making it out of the alley alive aren’t very high. At the same time, he’s never been the kind to just lay down and surrender, and he’s not about to start now! So with that in mind, Stiles takes two more steps into the alley, and then he goes into motion.

The fake agent-lady and one of the men go down before they fully realize what’s going on. They clearly weren’t expecting Stiles to fight back. Which actually makes the human wonder who they are, why they’re after him, and what exactly they think they know about him (clearly not enough if it never occurred to them he could and would fight them).

The third man has just gone down with a bloody nose and a blow to the knee hard enough Stiles is fairly certain he won’t be getting back up any time soon, when the low whistle of the wind as its being cut by a bolt, or rather several, makes him react instinctively, throwing himself into a forwards roll. The first arrow manages to carve into his upper left arm (at least it doesn’t end up buried in his chest!) but he manages to dodge the next two entirely.

“What the hell do you people want?” he demands, jumping back onto his feet.

“Why don’t you give up and come with us quietly?” one of the men asks instead.

“Why the fuck would I ever do something as stupid as that?” Stiles asks crassly. “Really, if whoever the fuck sent you truly expected me to just go quietly with you, they clearly don’t know me at all.”

He makes a feint to his right before throwing himself at the man at his left, throwing a punch hard enough to knock him out entirely (and probably break something in his face in the process).

He sees the knife coming at him from the corner of his eye and barely manages to drop to his knees and bend backwards enough to dodge it. Twisting to the side and purposefully sweeping the legs off one of the women. She takes down a second one in the process, which is pretty neat (for Stiles at least) even if only one of them ends up knocking herself out when her head slams against the pavement hard. The other pulls out a knife of her own and goes after Stiles.

They’re not using their guns, and Stiles can only guess they’re trying to not call too much attention. The alley’s out of the way of the main street, enough that no one has noticed what’s going on in there just yet. But if people hear gunshots… At the same time, it’s clear that even if they probably still want to ‘capture’ Stiles, they have no compunction about injuring, or possibly even killing him.

Stiles doesn’t like using lethal force, he really doesn’t. Despite what Scott might claim, or perhaps even truly believe himself. At the same time, Stiles would rather not end up dead so… he ups the ante.

When the woman he tripped before goes after him with that knife again, instead of just dodging her, Stiles twists around, grabbing her arm and directing her towards the man who’d been approaching him from behind. Her blade ends up in the attacker’s stomach.

Two more men fall to arrows or blades Stiles either redirects, or just makes sure to dodge in a way to ensure they hit someone else (rather than just dodging them himself).

Being honest with himself (which he always is. Stiles might have no compunction about lying to others, but never to himself), Stiles knows he won’t be able to keep going forever. While he’s in pretty good physical condition (he might not be a shifter, but still!), the enemies are too many, sooner or later he’s going to lose. Still, he won’t make it easy for them!

The more time that passes, the more Stiles tires, the more he slows down. He starts taking more injuries, blows to his legs, to his back, slashes to his arms, a shoulder. He barely manages to catch the hand of the next man who tries to stab him, stopping the knife inches from his flank. However, that leaves him wide open to the one coming at him from behind.

Stiles has been electrocuted before. More than once even (he’ll never forget the first time, in the dark, dank Argent murder basement). It’s the kind of attack that always takes him by surprise, the kind he cannot fight against. With blows and cuts he can make an effort to keep himself from flinching, from moving the wrong way. He cannot do that when the electricity is coursing through his body, making his limbs seize wildly. He falls and cannot even try and catch himself.

Perhaps the only silver lining of sorts in that moment is the knowledge he doesn’t fall alone. The man who tried to stab him, Stiles was holding onto him when he was electrocuted, so the charge hits him as well. He falls right along with Stiles.

Stiles can vaguely hear the man-with-the-knife cursing, yelling at the one with the cattle-prod, clearly mad that he was hurt in the process. Stiles would laugh if he could. As it is, he can do nothing at all, just lay there as the world goes black. A part of him wonders if he’ll ever wake up again…

 

Part I. The Human.

Stiles always knew that his mom was special. And not just in that way all little kids believe their moms to be special (though in that way too!). But there was just something about her… in the way she moved; so agile, so fast, so fluid. Almost as if she were dancing all the time! Stiles asked her about it, back when he was still Mischief rather than Stiles.

“Mommy, why do you move like that?”

“Like what, my Mischief?” His mom asked, the smile never leaving her face (she was always smiling at him, always).

“Like you’re dancing,” Mischief explained.

“Well, maybe I am dancing,” Claudia said simply, her smile growing wider. “Won’t you dance with me, my Mischief?”

“But mommy, we cannot dance, there’s no music!” Mischief giggled at his mom’s words.

“Oh but there is,” Claudia insisted. “This is a very special music, dear heart. A melody that you do not hear with your ears, you listen to it, with your heart.”

And Mischief, who was still young enough to believe every word that came from his mom was the absolute truth, believed her.

So from that day on, Mischief and his mom would often dance together to a music only they could hear. The father: deputy Noah Stilinski, tried to understand what was going on, more than once. He never really could, but in the end that didn’t really matter to him. Nothing mattered as long as his family was happy.

Mischief knew his mom was special, and really awesome. He’d always known it, but there was one day, one event in particular, that showed him just how awesome his mom was.

He’d been very young back then, too young to be left at home alone when his mom had to run to the store because she’d forgotten a key ingredient for the dinner she was planning on making for his dad. So they walked the three blocks to the store, hand in hand, despite it being dark already. Everything was just fine on their way to the store, the problem was on their way back.

A man approached them, holding a knife. He was shaking and he looked, really sick, to Mischief’s kid eyes (it wouldn’t be until years later that the boy would be able to think back on things and realize the man must have been a junkie, and coming down really hard from a bad trip or something). He started yelling at his mom, demanding she give him all her money. Then… well, apparently his mom didn’t react fast enough, and then the guy saw Mischief… he shifted in the boy’s direction. Just slightly. That was when his mom reacted.

Mischief didn’t actually know what his mom did, exactly. She moved so fast… he doesn’t think he actually saw her move. He just remembers the knife dropping to the ground, the man down on one knee, mumbling and crying (really big tears), and holding the hand he was using to hold the knife, like it was broken (like Mischief did that time when he tried to catch the ball an older kid had kicked, he almost broke his wrist!).

Then Mischief’s mom picked up the bag she’d dropped (she never let go of Mischief) and the two of them walked the two blocks to their home.

“Mischief baby, let’s not tell daddy about that man, okay?” she asked. “I don’t want him to worry.”

“Okay mommy,” Mischief nodded.

He didn’t understand why his dad would even worry. His mommy never worried. She was so calm through it all. And she was really awesome! Wouldn’t his daddy be proud because his mommy was awesome? But if mommy said not to tell him, then Mischief wouldn’t tell. He always did what his mom told him, because she was so good, and Mischief liked making her happy.

xXx

One day, when Mischief was a kid, a couple of people dressed in dark jeans, sturdy boots, and leather trench coats showed up at his house after his dad had left for work. They were there to deliver grave news: his mom’s brothers were dead.

Mischief knew he had uncles, back in Poland. Had even heard his mom talking to them on the phone a few times, though not often. And they’d only visited once, back when Mischief was really, really little (he didn’t actually remember it, but there was a single picture in his mom’s jewelry box, of her with two men, one of them holding a picture of another young man, and toddler Mischief).

His mom didn’t really cry, when she was given the news. Though she did murmur something in Polish that sounded like a prayer. Mischief was learning Polish (He had to, if he ever wanted to be able to pronounce his own name properly!), but he wasn’t very good at it just yet; so he didn’t know exactly what it was his mom was saying, though it definitely sounded like praying.

Then she started asking questions. Mischief couldn’t really follow a lot of the conversation. Only really able to pick a few words here and there. Sounded like his uncles were working… or was it hunting? Something about an accident, or maybe not-an-accident, and there was one word, teu-something, that didn’t sound like Polish at all!

In the evening his mom told his dad her remaining brothers were dead, and he immediately did his best to comfort her. Though Mischief couldn’t help but notice she still wasn’t crying (was that normal?). Then his dad went to take a shower and go to bed (he had an early shift), kissing his son’s brow before leaving him to be taken to bed by his mom, as usual.

“Wanna listen to a story?” she asked him.

Mischief loved to listen to his mom tell him stories. Whether they were from books, or totally made up. He absolutely loved it. So his mom told him a story. One about the world, how it began, and how it changed.

The world they live in, it hadn’t always been the way it was now. It’s existed for longer than humans could ever comprehend, and long before humanity came to be, other beings inhabited it. Beings so strange and fantastical, most would believe them to be impossible. They’re not around anymore. Some because they ceased to be, and others because a time came when the world could no longer hold them, and they went to live in another one, a different dimension.

However, the latter beings, they were there when humanity first opened their eyes. They knew, better than the new humans, how dangerous the world could be, and that while the oldest of beings were gone, there were still dangers in the world, some too old, and too powerful, for the new humans to be able to defend themselves from them. So before leaving, these beings gave humanity what blessings they could. Gave them gifts, so they’d be able to fight, to protect themselves. The gifts of magic, of endurance, of strength, speed and so many others.

Humans with gifts that were similar enough gathered together, forming families and tribes and packs, creating the beginning of groups that would go on to protect the rest of humanity from the dangers that hid in the darkness: the monsters. These groups were the beginning, but they were far from the end.

By modern times, humanity had spread across the world, and with them, all the various blessed groups. Evolution acting on them as much as it did on mundane humans, it had also changed the blessings in some ways. There were those with the gift of magic that could never truly do much, but they insisted it was because that’s how it was meant to be, magic was a tool, nothing more. They were the druids and the wiccans and the wizards. Then there were those capable of extraordinary feats, of great miracles… and terrible disasters. They called themselves by many different names: witches, sorcerers, mages, enchanters, spell-weavers…

Some were strong, and fast, and had the ability to ‘skinwalk’ as some called it. Either into different shapes, or solely one other than the human one. These came to be known as shifters.

And then there were those blessed with other skills, not quite as obvious, but just as valuable, just as important. They were the warriors.

Where the magicals and the shifters chose to keep to themselves, living in small conclaves and packs, or sometimes even smaller groups or individuals surrounded by mundane humans, warriors chose to organize themselves. They chose a chieftain, the strongest, cleverest and best leader among them, called them, Brenin, their word for King (though it was granted regardless of gender).

The Brenin then chose those they trusted most, those closest, to help them lead the rest of the warriors. They became his teulu (family). And finally, each bloodline, each clan, chose a chief of their own, a Tywysog (chief/prince) to lead their clan (and the various families that were part of it) into battle whenever necessary, and to serve as their Brennan’s bodyguard.

There were twelve clans, including the one the Brenin belonged to: Kemp, Gajos, Cadman, Abbott, Warner, Ekon, Gauthier, Carnell, Auger, Bardin, Hassan and Valencia.

For many generations, the warriors fulfilled their duties diligently and with great honor. The biggest issue came upon the boom of Catholicism. The warriors had always been really open-minded regarding religious practices. Came with having clans from very different nations, with wholly different histories and traditions. Of all the clans only the Abbots tended to truly focus on matters of religion; which was why they tended to serve as religious advisors to the Brenin. Though it was a matter that went beyond any one religion, focusing more on general guidelines (like seeking to harm none, seeking to protect rather than punish, being merciful, charitable, among other things).

That wasn’t a problem early on, when so many countries existed with so many religions. Even if some of those religions were monotheistic, things weren’t too hard. And then Catholicism started expanding more than any other religion, but it wasn’t only that more people chose to turn to that particular religion, but how… intense the believers could be. And some of their beliefs, like the idea that god created mankind in his image… What did that mean for those blessed? The mention of demons, and things like heresy, only made things worse.

It was hard to tell what it was that really caused the crack in the ranks of the warriors. Some truly believed that it was Catholicism, and the choice of several of the families to convert to this religion. Others will forever believe that this was just an excuse those families used to tear themselves away from the Brenin, wanting power for themselves.

Several of the clans lost a good few families during this time; but especially the Carnells, Augers, and Bardins. Several of those same families would later resurface, in other countries, going by different names, claiming to still be doing their work. Except they now called themselves by a different title… they claimed to be hunters…

“Are the hunters evil mommy?” Mischief asked.

“I don’t think people are ever truly evil simply for being what they are, baby,” his mom told him. “Whether they’re warriors, or shifters, or magicals, or hunters, or humans. All kinds of people can be good, and all kinds of people can be evil.”

“So the hunters are not evil, but they can be,” Mischief wanted to clarify.

“Just like everyone else,” his mom nodded.

“You could never be evil mommy, nor daddy!” the boy hurried to defend his parents.

His mom just hugged him tight after that affirmation.

It took several days and a number of stories, before his mom eventually got to why the stories she was telling Mischief were so important.

“Something you need to understand, baby, is that before I married your daddy and came to live with him here, I had a different name, and a very different life,” Claudia explained to him. “I was Klaudia Gajos, the Tywysog of the Gajos Clan, and part of my Brenin’s Teulu.”

“You were a knight, mommy?” Mischief was absolutely fascinated by his mom. “That’s awesome!”

Claudia had tried to explain to him that a Tywysog wasn’t exactly like a knight, but her kid kept with that comparison, so in the end she let it go.

Things didn’t end there, though. She explained to Mischief that she’d given up on all that, her position as well as her name, when she fell in love with his dad, married him, became Claudia Stilinski. The elder of her brothers (all who had been younger than her, though the middle one died when they were still young, shortly before Claudia married Noah, actually) took her place, becoming the new Gajos Tywysog. The problem was, with all three of her brothers now dead, the last two having been killed during a mission in Northern Europe not a month prior, there were only three people left with Gajos blood (Claudia, Mischief and a young girl barely three or four years older than Mischief, the daughter of Claudia’s second brother), and none of them bore the name.

“Does that mean you will have to go away mommy?” Tears glistened in the corners of Mischief’s eyes, even as he fought to hold them back.

“No!” Claudia answered, vehemently, dropping to her knees and holding her son tight against her chest. “Of course not baby. I’d never leave you, or your dad.”

“Then who will be the knight now?” Mischief asked, even as he held onto his mom just as tightly.

“I don’t know, baby,” Claudia admitted.

For the longest time none of them spoke. And then, surprising her (and possibly even himself) Mischief spoke up:

“I’ll do it,” he announced. “I’ll be the knight.”

His words, his choice, would change his life, forever.

xXx

He was given the name of Mietek Gajos.

Oh, his name was still Mieczyslaw Stilinski, legally and everything. But whenever he was training to be a warrior, especially during the summers he spent in Europe training with the rest of the clans’ children, he was known as Mietek Gajos, son of Klaudia Gajos.

Mischief’s dad knew nothing of the shadow-world (as his mom called everything connected to the supernatural). He knew the Gajos were an old family, and they had some… strange traditions. It was the excuse Claudia used so he’d allow their son to start learning self-defense, and especially the trips to Europe for the summers. It wasn’t that Claudia didn’t trust her husband, but she knew Noah. He was such a good man, a man of the law. He’d have a very hard time understanding how differently things were handled in the shadow-world. Claudia did not want her husband to suffer knowing that there were things going on that there was nothing he could do about. Crimes that he could not pursue, could not make justice for, because the guilty parties would kill him without breaking a sweat if he were just to try. Even for her it wasn’t easy sometimes. Having been a Tywysog, and having given it up… In the end, she supposed sometimes ignorance truly was bliss.

The first summer, Claudia flew with her son to NY. Explaining on the way why she couldn’t take him all the way to Wales.

“I’m not one of them anymore, my Mischief,” she told him. “I gave up that life and name, when I fell in love with your dad. I’m not one of them anymore.”

“Does that mean… if I’m one of them does that mean I won’t be yours?” Mischief was horrified by the mere thought.

“No!” Claudia exclaimed immediately. “Of course not, baby. You will always be my Mischief, alright? Always and forever.”

“Always and forever,” Mischief agreed.

In NY they met with several other people: Mirele Wyatt was a few years older than Mischief, she was also the only daughter of one of Claudia’s brothers. With pale skin, long chocolate brown hair in a thick braid that fell over one shoulder, and eyes that seemed to almost change colors (between gray, green and honey brown); she was dressed in a simple off-white top, jeans and sneakers. With her was her mom: Elin Wyatt, who shared her eyes but not much else (apparently Mirele looked a lot like her dad, like Mischief’s uncle). Neither of them had the Gajos name because Elin had just been Genim’s girlfriend at the time of his death. Also, she was American, the granddaughter of English immigrants, and while she knew about the shadow-world, she wasn’t a part of it herself. Still, she was willing to have her daughter trained to potentially become a warrior one day.

There were two other people they met in the airport that day: first was Sophia Atwood, a teenager, with long, slightly wavy brown hair, chocolate eyes, smooth tanned skin, dressed in a short-sleeved top, dark-washed jeans and calf-high dark-leather boots, a denim jacket tied around her waist. She was born Sofiya Popova, in Bulgaria, had lost her older sister when the other girl sacrificed her life to get Sofiya out of the country to save her from the war. The younger girl was taken to the US and adopted by a family, the Atwoods, who looked after her until magic started manifesting in her. It wasn’t unheard of, while she was the last Popova, a cadet branch of the Abbott Clan, she also had a bit of a magic spark to her. Eventually she’d have to choose which path she’d walk.

Finally, with Sophia was her tutor: Ivor Halloran, Irish immigrant, in his fifties, with once-dark-hair that was slowly but surely going gray, straight and long enough to brush his shoulders, he also had a moustache and well-groomed beard. He was dressed in a dark, long-sleeved henley and dove-gray slacks, thick-soled dark-boots on his feet. He was a druid, the High Druid of North America, and the one who’d been supervising Sophia’s initial training, at least until she received the invitation to become a warrior. He would be traveling with her to assist where needed, while she decided which path she’d be taking.

Ivor was also put in charge of the two children: Mietek and Mirele, at least for the duration of the flight to London, and from there a car ride to Wales.

Mietek (even though he liked his mom and dad still calling him Mischief, he knew the training was a serious matter, so he went by Mietek all the time while he was training) met a lot of people during the summers he spent training in Europe. He was, at first sight, very friendly with everyone. But those who came to know him, truly know him, soon realized his friendliness, while not a lie, was in many ways a facade. Because when people saw him as happy, carefree, always friendly… they did not notice the steel underneath, didn’t notice the strength… the threat. And Mietek liked it that way.

From his very first summer Mietek proved to be one of the very best in his cohort. And by the third year, he was the very best among the males, better than even those older than him; second overall, with only one girl managing to top his scores. Which he insisted was only right, considering said girl was none other than Alexis Bellona Kemp, their Edling (basically ‘heir to the throne’). Most of the older warriors called him ‘little knight’ since he’d never gotten out of the habit of calling the warriors, knights; he even referred to Alexis as ‘princess’.

Alexis was a few years older than Mietek, and his best friend. About the same height as him (though once they were fully grown, she’d end up a few inches shorter than him), with skin as pale as him, chestnut brown hair and bright blue eyes; she usually had her hair in two braids to keep it out of the way, while still keeping it as long as she liked.

It was one of the first lessons they got from their fighting instructors, the importance of not giving their enemies something that could be used against them. This included everything from loose clothing, purses, jewelry and even long hair.

Alexis’s position was… complicated in some ways, because while she was too young yet (and not trained enough) to be anything other than Edling, they didn’t actually have a Brenin.

“It’s a shitshow,” she admitted to their little group at one point during their second summer.

The girl was probably the only person who could curse more than Mietek; and he could be a potty mouth at times (regardless of how much both of his parents had tried to correct him)! She insisted it was Arek’s fault.

Arek, whose full name was Aron Franciszek Arkadiusz, was half Polish, half British. His father had been Polish, and entirely human, with no connection or even knowledge of the supernatural, but his mother was British, a Kemp. Retired from life as a warrior after a bad fight left her with a permanent limp. While the woman had still been quite extraordinary, warriors were meant to go after the worst of the worst; monsters, and demons, and sometimes creatures even older and more terrible than those. It was dangerous to send anyone not at 100% on such missions. Even warriors in top physical condition could lose their lives.

“If Arek is a Kemp, why isn’t he Brenin right now?” Sophia asked.

“Because he refused,” Alexis said simply.

“What?” That took them all by surprise. “Why?”

So Alexis told them a little story: about Francesca Arkadiusz, nee Kemp; head bodyguard of their last Brenin (her aunt). She wasn’t Edling because even as good as she was, her cousin: Caron, was better. Only, he died in the very same mission where Francesca was permanently injured, when they went to fight against an ages old demon. In fact, Francesca was protecting her Edling when she was badly wounded and knocked out. By the time she recovered consciousness half their team was dead, including Caron, the rest were going through the carnage, trying to find out who all survived. That the demon itself was gone as well, sent back to hell in a sacrificial move by one of their magic-users, was perhaps the only reason why that particular mission wasn’t marked as a failure despite all the losses.

Francesca left Wales shortly afterwards, not wanting to be around all the warriors when she wasn’t one herself anymore. She was offered a position working in the background, in the offices, but that just wasn’t her thing. It felt… It felt like a punishment to her, to be offered a job only ever done by members of cadet families who ‘didn’t make the cut’ in training. So she left Wales and traveled across Europe for a while. Eventually meeting, falling in love with and marrying a Polish man called Artur Arkadiusz, making a new life in Poland.

The really big issue? Several years after giving birth to Aron Franciszek (Arek for short), and while trying for another child, they discovered Francesca had cancer. A most aggressive kind, that didn’t respond to any of the treatments they attempted. There was nothing they could do; Francesca died less than two years after being diagnosed. All this wouldn’t even be that big a deal if it weren’t for what Arek himself discovered several years later.

Arrangements were made, practically since Arek’s birth, for him to be trained as a warrior when the time came. It was during his last year of training, when he proved to be the best of his cohort, he was offered the place of Edling (as they had none, and so very few Kemps left at all). Almost entirely by accident, Arek discovered that, according to the investigation done by several Abbots and Gauthiers, the number of warriors that fell victim to some very serious illnesses, like various forms of dementia and cancer, were growing. According to the studies, it was those warriors who’d fought high-level demons most, who were more likely to become sick later on in life.

All this was quite interesting, but not especially important; at least not in the sense that it didn’t make any difference. Or so Arek thought, until he realized there was a cure… It had been discovered by one of the Gauthier cadet families, a potion that while it didn’t actually cure the sickness itself, it took away the curse that prevented human treatments from working. This potion had existed for years! Since before his mom even got sick! And they did nothing to help her…

“So what, he refused to be king because they didn’t help his mom?” Mirele summarized in disbelief.

Truth is, she was far from the only one to find it more than a little ridiculous. Not that something like that happened, of course not, that was absolutely awful. But truth was, nothing he did or stopped doing would change it. On the other hand, he could have become leader and made sure such things never happened again! Which was more or less how Alexis came to be their Edling.

“I’m too young to be Brenin,” Alexis explained. “Need to finish my training, complete a number of missions, prove myself. And then I’ll be able to take the position. Arek will be Teulu, he’s already sworn himself as my bodyguard. I think he realized, after the fact, how much good he could have done… but by then he’d already sworn to never be Brenin.” she shook her head. “We cannot change the past. That’s beyond us all. But we can make a better future. For us, and for the shadow-world. And I would like you all to be a part of that, to be my Teulu…”

Mietek had known it could be no coincidence, the group she’d gathered together that day. They were all the very best of their cohort, also, the ones most likely to become Tywysog once the time came for them to ascend.

Sofiya was the eldest of their group who, after making the choice to be a warrior and upon reaching her majority, changed her name to Sofiya Popova-Abbot. Her tutor, Ivor, had gone back to the US once her choice was made. Also, Mirele hadn’t returned to Wales after that first summer, deciding the path of a warrior just wasn’t for her.

In time, others had joined their little group: Trystan Cadman (the tallest, and from a purely physical standpoint, strongest of the group; English-born, with light brown hair and deep blue eyes), Ioan Warner (German-born, the eldest of them all, older than even Sofiya, with a lithe built, dirty blonde hair and dark blue eyes, he was quiet but powerful), Amélie Gauthier (French, with long, messy blonde-hair, blue-gray eyes, a bit on the short side; she wasn’t much of a fighter but she had extensive knowledge of all sorts of things from advance mathematics to biological warfare and wasn’t afraid to use it), Sharif Hassan (of Egyptian descent, with dark skin, hair and eyes, the man looked quite imposing at first sight, and was one of the strongest of the team, yet when one got to know him he was also one of the most gentle people on the planet) and Cruz Valencia (Spanish, with golden-tanned skin, coffee brown eyes and straight brown hair to her shoulder blades, which she had a habit of bleaching blonde to different degrees whenever the mood struck her; she was the one closest in age to Mietek; capable of making a joke out of pretty much anything, until the fighting began, then she was absolutely wild and vicious).

Mietek himself was the youngest of their little group, but at the same time the most talented. While both Trystan and Sharif were older and physically stronger than him, and Cruz had no compunction about fighting dirty, Mietek was the kind of person who refused to stay down. No matter how many times he was knocked down, he’d get back up, time and again. Also, he had a habit of being a wild-card. Some of their trainers had said that sometimes even Mietek didn’t know what he was going to do, before he did it. Which wasn’t far from the truth.

They had such high hopes, once their time came to be in charge…

xXx

Mietek hit the ground, hard. Barely managing to go into a roll backwards and a bit to the left to avoid the follow-on attack from one of his current opponents. The whistling of the wind gave away the one coming at him from behind, prompting him to bow his head to dodge another blow before extending one of his legs and moving it in a sweeping motion, bringing down the person that thought to come at him from behind.

When the next attack came, he almost wasn’t fast enough. Barely managing to catch the wrist of the woman as she was moving a short blade towards him in a downwards motion (the dagger had been blunted magically, which meant that while it wouldn’t have actually left a hole in his chest, he’d have still felt as if it had). A sharp twist from his own hand and the woman’s wrist cracked, it wasn’t enough to break anything, but enough to prompt her to let go of her weapon and back away from him a couple of steps. Enough for Mietek to easily aim a spinning kick at her temple, knocking her out entirely. And the fight went on.

Several minutes later Mietek was the only one left standing, half a dozen men and women strewn around him, either unconscious, or at the very least ‘injured’ enough to be out of the fight. For several seconds he just stood there, panting, hands on his staff, ready. No one came at him.

He was finally pulled out of it by the purposeful clapping of those around the training arena

“Well little knight, I can say you definitely passed,” Arek said with a slight smirk.

Mietek rolled his eyes at the whole ‘little knight’; he knew technically it was his own fault (he still hadn’t stopped calling Alexis princess…) but still!

As for what he passed… technically he’d finished his training. Of course, he was still only a kid, far from being old enough to be considered off-age, much less to go on missions with the rest of the warriors. And of course as he grew up, reached his full height and whatever proportions his body might take (though it seemed he’d forever be on the lithe side of the body-build) he’d have to adapt what he’d already learned to fit with his changing body. But those were just details. On a basic level, his training was over.

And it wasn’t even just that. While all warriors had to prove themselves capable of a number of feats to be considered as finishing their training, there was a difference between those who were foot-soldiers, so-to-speak, and the truly talented warriors on the bunch, especially those being considered for Tywysog status. Sofiya, Alexis, Mietek and the rest of their little group of friends had all gone through it at the end of their respective training. That extra test was a number of fights, against a progressively increasing number of the best fighters available (full adults, and not their trainers).

Mietek, because of his young age, was only expected to fight six opponents at most. In the coming years, every summer, he’d go through the test repeatedly, the number of fights, and of enemies, growing. He’d be expected to be able to fight a dozen of the best adult warriors (those not Tywysog themselves) at the same time, and win by the time he was sixteen in order to be granted the rank of Gajos Tywysog.

The only ones who’d already reached that part of the test were Ioan and Sofiya. Mietek knew Alexis had every intention of pushing to be allowed to go against twelve opponents following her fifteenth birthday, at the latest, and Mietek himself wondered if he might be able to do the same by the time he was fourteen. It wasn’t false pride to believe he might be able to do it. And there was also the fact that sometimes he couldn’t help the lingering desire… he wanted to prove himself. To show to everyone that even if he could only do formal training during the summers, even if his mom was retired from the life of a warrior, and his dad was mundane, he, Mietek, was strong, and deserving of the title of Gajos Tywysog…

The real celebration, though, took place once all the adults were gone, and it was only Mietek, Alexis and their friends left. The two of them had never really made friends beyond their group. And it wasn’t hard to see why. With Mietek, he spent most of the year on the other side of the world, in Wales only really during the summers, so it wasn’t like he had the time to meet a lot of people. And Alexis… she’d always guessed being the Edling made most people feel… intimidated by her.

Sofiya had a group of friends outside of them, mostly of those who, like her, were warriors and at the same time had some magic. Mietek himself had a bit of a spark, but aside from being very good at manipulating mountain ash, he’d never shown interest in learning much (there was really not a lot of time, he had to prioritize, and he decided from the start that he cared more about learning to be a warrior, than he did about the magic). The others were fairly friendly with other warriors too, especially those of their own ages, and whom they sparred with more often than not. Alexis and Mietek just had each other, and their future teulu…

His friends had a gift for Mietek after his last test: a pair of leather armbands. They were black leather, engraved with runes along the edges; on the back was a mithril inlaid dara celtic knot, a symbol of strength, representing the complex roots of an oak tree, a symbol of their teulu… The runes on the edges made the armbands resistant (against wear, and use in battle), giving Mietek a certain level of protection while wearing them. One of the runes also served to change their size, from full armbands (from the base of his palm, to the inside of his elbow… and they’d grow with him too!), to a normal, two inch wristband, as needed (which meant he’d be able to wear them even when he wasn’t out being a ‘warrior’). There was the idea of using them as holsters for small blades, but Sofiya was the only one of them with any real magic and she didn’t know how to achieve something like that just yet.

“Thank you,” Mietek murmured.

He was a bit teary-eyed as his friends helped secure the ties of the armbands.

He proudly showed them off, smile widening when the others extended their own arms, showing off similar bands (which had also been gifts from Alexis). They all matched.

Gift having been delivered, the party truly began.

“We’re gonna be awesome, one day,” Alexis declared at one point.

“What are you saying,” Mietek scoffed. “We’re already awesome!”

Most of the others snorted, though they didn’t deny it, which made Mietek’s smile grow.

“Focus Mietek,” Alexis ordered, her playful smile taking any possible chastisement away from the words. “We have a plan.”

“That we do,” Mietek agreed wholeheartedly. “I know I’m the youngest of the group, but I’m still planning on pushing so I’ll be able to go through the entire final test once I’m fourteen. I’m sure I will be able to pass it then.”

“You know, you don’t have to push so hard…” Sofiya began, softly. “You’re so young still…”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to,” Mietek insisted. “I know I can do it.”

“Of course you can do it,” Cruz stated calmly. “We know you can do it. You don’t have to prove anything to us…”

“Not to you, but what about everyone else?” Mietek pushed. “All those who keep looking down on me, and it’s not because I’m so short! No, it’s because they believe I’m not as good as them, despite the fact that I’ve knocked down more than a few of them! I’ve heard them whispering behind my back, how I’m only here because of my name, like I don’t deserve it, like I haven’t earned it! They think my mom was a coward because she chose to leave, think that my dad is less simply because he’s mundane! I want to show them… I’m going to show them…”

“You will Mietek, you will,” Alexis hurried to reassure him. “We all will. Not just at our tests. But one day… one day I will be Brenin, and you all will be your respective Clans’ Tywysog, you will be my teulu. And then we will show them all what we’re made of.”

They had a plan already, had been talking about it during their free time during previous summers. Arek had worked for the CBS (Central Bureau of Investigation, by its Polish initials) before eventually transferring to Interpol. He’d spent years creating a network of people within the organization who were aware of the shadow-world. Working with them to ‘sanitize’ crime scenes as much as possible, seeking to keep the shadow-world a secret from the mundane humans, while at the same time ensuring the guilty would still be punished.

Alexis and the others wanted to take things further. They were hoping to be able to ally with Interpol. They believed this would give them a way of doing their duty, without having to worry about the mundane justice system coming after them when they were just trying to keep people safe. At the same time, it’d help ensure the secrecy of the supernatural.

And, more than one of them were also hoping working with an organization like Interpol might help them curtail the worst of the hunter activities once and for all.

Hunters were a growing problem (had been one for a while, in fact, but lately it seemed to be growing exponentially). warriors had never been very fond of hunters, seeing them as little more than wannabes, pretenders, who tried to claim to be equals of the warriors, while at the same time carefully keeping themselves away from the truly dangerous creatures. And what was worse, going after those who ought to have been allies, fellow blessed (shifters and magicals) treating them as if they were less, simply because they were different.

Mietek truly believed it was the hunters, more than feral shifters, rogue magic-users or even freaking demons, that were the true danger to them all. Especially those hunters who, either because they were so insane, so bloodthirsty, or they truly believed themselves that powerful… they didn’t even try that hard to hide their activities.

The Calaveras in Mexico were a clear example of this. And there was someone, (or most likely a group of someones) who’d been decimating peaceful shifter packs in the last couple of years. No one knew yet which people, or family was behind it, as there were practically no survivors, and the few there were, were not talking.

Alexis wanted so much to be able to help, but the warriors just did not have the kind of footing in the US to do much. She hoped they’d be able to change that. But for that to happen, first she had to become Brenin, and the rest of them had to become her teulu…

xXx

Everything changed after Mietek’s third summer in Europe. While he was aware his mom had been having some trouble with her memory and attention span at the time he left, his parents had insisted it was just that she was coming down with something, nothing serious, nothing to worry about… Then Mietek returned to Beacon Hills and things were so, so much worse…

“He’s trying to kill me!”

“Stop looking at me like that! Stop it!”

“He’s a demon! Sent here to kill me!!!”

Those words hurt him, deeply, each a stab straight to his heart. They didn’t stop Mischief (he was Mischief again, because that’s what he’d always be for his mom, even when she no longer remembered him) from being with her as much as he could. From sitting with her at the hospital, holding her hand, whenever she would allow it; or sitting in a corner, watching her silently, whenever she refused to let him get close. He cared about nothing else: not school, not his friends, not his training, nothing that wasn’t his mom.

Fronto temporal dementia, that’s what the doctors called her illness. Parts of her brain were essentially shrinking and that was affecting a lot of stuff: from her memories (she barely ever remembered Mischief, at times she didn’t even remember Noah, and more than once they’d heard her call out for other people, either in Polish, or at times Welsh, calling for her people, her teulu…) to her impulses and actions (she was violent every so often, sometimes against herself, the nurses, or the doctors, but a few times against Mischief). She came so close to killing herself once, almost jumping off the rooftop, would have, if Mischief’s dad hadn’t gotten to her in time.

Mischief hated so much seeing his beloved mother like that. Hated even more that there was nothing he could do for her.

And then she died.

It happened suddenly, one night. It was a rare good day. She didn’t fully remember him, or rather, she seemed to remember more the little kid he’d been years prior, than the ten-year-old he was nowadays. She’d slip into speaking in Polish or Welsh every so often, but that was okay, Mischief knew both languages and could speak them relatively fluently.

Later on Mischief wouldn’t be able to remember what they’d been talking about exactly. His mom grew quieter as the minutes passed, it almost looked like she was falling asleep even as she talked. And he thought nothing of it, she was so peaceful at that moment. Allowing Mischief not just close to her, but even on the edge of her bed, and holding her hand, and she was smiling at him!

Mischief didn’t know how long it took him to notice when she stopped breathing. Was it right away? Was he so distracted that he didn’t notice? Could he have done something…? Could he have saved her if he’d only noticed faster that something was wrong?

Then there were alarms, nurses and doctors rushing all around. He thinks someone told him to leave the room, they might have even tried to move him but when he refused, an orderly literally carried him out of the room, screaming for his mom (it was only his lessons, which had been so insistent about how he must never use his training against mundane humans, that kept Mischief from turning into Mietek and fighting like hell to stay with his mom, despite the fact that the conscious, logical part of his brain knew there was nothing he could have done).

By the time his dad arrived Mischief was sitting on a chair outside of the room, the room that held his mom… except it wasn’t his mom anymore, was it? It was just an empty body that once belonged to his beloved mother… And, he knew right in that moment, with her gone, he wasn’t Mischief anymore either, and he’d never be again.

xXx

The last thing Stiles (he was Stiles now, Mischief had died, along with his beloved mother) expected, was when Alexis, Arek, Sofiya and the rest of their little group, their teulu, arrived just in time for his mom’s funeral. Mirele and Elin showed up as well. While Mirele had stopped training to be a warrior, both Stiles and his mom had made a point of visiting with them in New York for a few days when he was on his way back to California, at the end of the summer (she’d always fly to NY to ‘pick him up’ always… except for that summer, that was the moment when Stiles first knew something was wrong). They were family, after all.

Claudia was cremated, part of the warrior tradition she’d wanted to keep to, despite not being a warrior herself anymore. Stiles knew it was a good idea for many reasons, not just from a tradition-standpoint. But there was far less of a chance of someone desecrating his mother in any way, if her body was ashes. The ashes were still placed in a grave, the same where there was already a tombstone with a small silhouette of an angel, and the name Miriam Norah Stilinski…

Stiles’ mom had had several miscarriages, both before and after he was born. Though the worst of all was perhaps the very first. Because that time his mom had gotten far along enough to know the baby was a girl, far along enough to give her a name, to buy clothes for her and start planning her bedroom, planning the life they’d have with her… and which never happened.

Stiles’ dad went back to work two days after the funeral. It… Stiles was not surprised, not really. He knew there were no laws for bereavement leave in California, and his dad was the sheriff now! Also, Stiles wasn’t as naive as his parents probably thought him to be. He knew they were in a lot of debt, between the hospital bills from his mom, and what was still owed from back when Stiles had to go through all the testing for the diagnosis, and then finding the right treatment for his ADHD. Insurance might have covered some of that, but not all of it. Especially when the more common drugs and doses did not work out for him and the doctors needed to be a bit more… creative. The only reason he could still make his trips to Wales (and even the brief stays in NY) was because those flights were covered by a Gajos account exclusively meant to be used for his training (it was the same account his mom used to get the equipment and clothes for his training back at home).

There was also the fact that his dad was grieving deeply, and trying so hard to be strong for Stiles, to keep the kid from seeing how much he hurt… He probably thought he was doing the right thing, protecting his son in some way, Stiles just thought it was creating a chasm between them, which he just didn’t know how to bridge.

In any case, it was because of his dad leaving for work that Stiles got the chance to meet with certain people right in his own home.

He’d already met with Elin and Mirele the day before. His dad wasn’t there for that meeting either. The three of them had dinner together and talked a bit about not just Claudia, but also Genim. It was clear Mirele loved listening to stories about her dad and his family that she’d never heard before; and while Stiles had never met his uncle, he remembered every single story his mom ever told him.

“I know you might not be able to visit all that often anymore,” Mirele murmured before they took their leave that night. “But promise you’ll at least call.”

“I promise,” Stiles assured her.

At that moment he didn’t understand why he wouldn’t visit anymore. He did that every year!

And then the next day, after his dad left for work, Alexis and the others dropped by.

“Cydymdeimlad dwys i chi a’ch teulu (Deep sympathy to you and your family),” Alexis said in a very formal manner.

They exchanged some words, the group basically expressing their condolences and their support to Mietek, promising they would be there for him. Were willing to help if he needed anything…

Something began to… niggle at Stiles, like an itch in the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure what was causing it, but there was just something…

“Rwy’n dy gefnogi di bob amser (I’m always here to support you),” Alexis finished, formally.

Stiles froze.

He just… stared at Alexis, at all of them, his body forced into complete stillness, even as his eyes grew increasingly darker as his mood shifted.

“Mietek…?” Sofiya asked, softly.

“How long have you known?” He asked, in a perfectly even tone… too even.

“What…?” Cruz seemed to be at a loss.

Dementia and cancer…

Warriors who fought dangerous demons…

They fell sick later on in life…

The Abbots had researched it…

And the Gauthiers… they found a cure! And yet…

And yet…

“How long have you known my mom was sick?” Stiles asked in a very no-nonsense tone.

He might have even thought he was exaggerating, overreacting, that he was still in the anger stage of grief and that making him more than a bit unreasonable… would have, except… Except for the way Sofiya was looking at him, with something that was more than grief. The others… they wouldn’t even look at him, not in the eye. And Alexis… she was looking at him, with a defiance Mietek knew instinctively was being used to hide something else.

“How – Long?” he demanded, tone hard and unyielding.

Other things came to mind then. He’d had a bit of an accident after his first summer in Wales. Winter came and Stiles was still so new to some aspects of training, he hadn’t been paying enough attention to the news regarding the weather, went into the preserve trails for a run and… and it had been colder than expected, and the snow, and the ice… he’d slipped on some iced-over rocks near the edge of a trail (which in turn lead to him falling down a steep hill and just out of sight of the running trail). He was found a couple of hours later by a group of volunteers led by Deputy Hale.

It hadn’t been that bad, all things told, except for how he ended up being out, in the cold, in completely inappropriate clothing, long enough to get sick. Started with a cold, but before the week was over it’d turned into pneumonia, and he didn’t respond to normal antibiotics. He’d vaguely heard his dad talk about getting some tests done, finding some other medication, even though their insurance wouldn’t have covered it, when a package arrived: medicine.

When asked about it, all his mom would say was that it had been a gift from an ‘old friend’ from the other side of the Atlantic… Stiles and his dad never thought to question it, both just happy that he got better. But thinking back on it, Stiles was pretty sure he could guess where that medicine came from. He was also pretty certain his mom hadn’t asked any of them for help, she hadn’t even been in touch with any warrior (other than her brothers) since leaving. Because that was the way of things. Once she stopped being one of them, they no longer cared about her.

And that was just it, wasn’t it?

“Leave,” Stiles ordered.

He didn’t even bother asking again how long they’d known. In the end, it was pointless. He had no doubt that they had, in fact, known his mom was sick. They’d known and done nothing about it. Francesca Arkadiusz taught them nothing! Weren’t they supposed to have learned from past mistakes? Weren’t they supposed to be better now?

“Mietek…” Trystan began.

“Stop,” Stiles cut him off.

“Mi…” Sofiya tried.

“No!” Stiles snapped. “I’m not Mietek Gajos anymore! I am Stiles Stilinski. That’s all I am…”

To prove his point, he pulled out a switchblade he always carried with him and swiftly cut through the ties holding his armbands in place, without even bothering to untie them. He let them fall.

The sharp inhales told him they all understood the significance of his actions.

“I give up,” he announced pointedly. “I’m no longer a warrior. Just a human. A mundane. And thus, none of your business.”

He didn’t miss the way several of them winced.

Alexis stepped forth, mouth open to say… something. Stiles didn’t allow it.

“It’s over, princess,” he told her, turning her back on her, on all of them. “Goodbye.”

xXx

Since he was still a kid, all of Stiles’ weapons, work clothes and equipment were in Wales, in a trunk made of oak, with runes engraved all over, as well as different versions of the dara celtic knot. Stiles had played with the idea of getting a tattoo one day with his favorite version forming a band around his upper arm. It’d have been symbolic…

In any case, with him being still a child, he didn’t have any of that stuff with him, it was all left in Wales, and he didn’t go back after his mother’s death. He didn’t even have the money to visit NY anymore, though he did make sure to call Mirele, even more often than before, as if in wordless apology for his lack of visits. She never asked what had happened, and he never offered an explanation either; though Stiles suspected she knew, or at least suspected some of it (she’d known he wouldn’t be visiting, before even he did).

Somehow Stiles almost felt as if the two of them had become better friends after the visits stopped than they’d been before.

“It’s your focus,” Mirele pointed out when he made a comment. “Or rather, the fact that all your focus is no longer on the warriors, and becoming one of them.”

“I… was I not paying proper attention to you on my visits?” Stiles was horrified by the idea.

How much did he not pay proper attention to. Was it just Mirele or… his dad? His mom?!

“No! Stiles!” Mirele cut him off before he could spiral too much. “ You’ve always been very attentive, I promise you. I just think… I think back then you were so focused on not talking about your training, when that was a huge part of your life, and not just during the summer, but all the training you did with Aunt Claudia… it kind of made it hard to find safe topics to chat about. Now… now it’s different.”

Because his life didn’t revolve around his training anymore… and neither did hers. Despite living on opposite ends of the country, the cousins found they could talk about pretty much anything. From school, friends, family, their hopes, their dreams…

Mirele was the only person who knew how bad things had gotten with Stiles’ mom when she was in one of her episodes. Stiles was the only one his cousin told how much it had hurt her not having a father; the fact that her uncles were never really close to her, and at times it felt like the only reason anyone ever showed an interest in her, was when she was suddenly one of the last Gajos and the warriors wanted a new one for their ranks so badly… Mirele knew how off the rails Stiles’ dad had gone for a few months after the death of his wife.

(Stiles didn’t know it, but it was Mirele herself who had called Noah Stilinski at a time when she’d known Stiles wouldn’t be home and read the man the riot act, with some help from her mom. Ending with a promise to go to California and take the boy away if the man did not pull his head out of his ass. It was probably not the kind of wake-up call the sheriff would have ever expected, but it was one he certainly needed.)

“I have huge news,” Mirele announced.

Years had passed. The cousins had graduated from simple phone calls every weekend to texting several times a week (usually small things, random ideas they had, pictures of something they saw and wanted to share, or even just memes) and long video-calls at least twice a month. Even Scott, Stiles’ best-friend knew better than to interrupt when Stiles was on one of his video-calls with Mirele (even if he didn’t seem to understand why Stiles spent so much time chatting with an older girl on the other side of the country).

Stiles was in his sophomore year of high-school while Mirele was attending community college in NY, just a few classes here and there as she hadn’t yet decided what she actually wanted to major in, if anything at all; and working part-time at a coffee shop.

“Really?” Stiles asked eagerly. “What is it?”

“Are you ready?” she taunted with an excited smile.

“Come on!” Stiles yelled good-naturedly. “Fess up!”

Mirele held her silence for a bit longer, enough that Stiles opened his mouth to insist once more when she finally blurted out:

“I’m pregnant!”

“What?!” Stiles asked in shock. “How…?”

“Really Miec,” that was what she called him, she was the only one who did. “Do you need me to explain to you about what happens when a boy and a girl…” she began with a mischievous smirk.

“Don’t!” Stiles cut her off. “You know that’s not what I meant. I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”

“I’m… not?”

“Was that a question or an affirmation?”

“Remember that guy I told you about? The one who works at the auto-shop?”

“The one who always buys a black coffee and the sweetest, most sugar-filled pastry on the menu, I remember,” Stiles had always found that incredibly funny for some reason.

“Him, yes. Well, back in September there were a few days when he was just… off. Like, he looked really depressed, you know? It took some convincing, but eventually he revealed it was the anniversary of his girlfriend’s death. He looked really bad, Miec… I mean, the guy was barely even paying any attention to his surroundings or anything!”

“If he was so distracted why didn’t he just go home?”

“I asked him that. He said his sister was… not very understanding of his grief. Kept telling him to just get over it. That he should be focused on other things.”

“What a bitch!”

“I know, right? Anyway, I was really worried about him…”

“And have the hots for him…”

“Stiles!” she flushed and stuttered a bit. “I mean, I do, but it wasn’t about that!”

“No, not at all, I’m sure. Especially since all this is somehow going to lead to you being pregnant. Which, I’m guessing he’s the baby-daddy!” He paused. “Wait, how did things go from him grieving his dead girlfriend to the two of you doing the horizontal tango?”

“Mieczysław!!!” Mirele shrieked.

Stiles just cackled.

“It wasn’t serious,” Mirele admitted eventually.

“Mir…” Stiles murmured, softly, worriedly.

“It’s alright, Miec,” Mirele assured him. “You know I’m not like you. I’m not a romantic. I have no interest in finding some great love. In having some prince sweeping me off my feet. Sex is fun, I like sex. Sebastian… I think he really needed someone to be there for him. And yeah, we got drunk, we had sex. We did use protection but I suppose no method is 100% foolproof. Now I’m pregnant.”

“Does he know?”

“Considering I just found out last week? Nope, not yet. I needed a few days to come to terms with it, and to break the news to my mom. She’s not… thrilled, exactly, but I think she’s happy enough.”

“Aunt Elin is fantastic and any baby will be very lucky to have her for a grandma,” Stiles stated confidently, then he thought of something else: “Wait, you guys got busy back in September, and you only found out you’re pregnant last week? How the hell did that even happen? You must be, what? Three months along by now!”

“I know! Shut up! I’ve been busy! And a bit distracted!”

Stiles just laughed at her, loudly, all over again. Mirele very pointedly waited until he fully calmed down before continuing their conversation.

“I will tell him next time I see him,” Mirele assured him. “Now, as to the true reason for this call.”

“Oh, we need to have a reason now?”

“Shut up!” She snapped at him, though she was laughing too.

“Okay, okay,” Stiles nodded at her. “Shoot.”

“Will you be my baby’s godfather?”

That request absolutely floored Stiles. For the longest time he kept opening and closing his mouth, not a single word coming out. It got to the point where Mirele actually checked her laptop, and then her headphones, to make sure she hadn’t lost sound or something.

“I’d love to,” Stiles finally managed to say.

Mirele smiled brightly at him.

It was until the video call ended though, that it really hit him:

“I’m gonna be a godfather!”

xXx

Stiles was a bit distracted from the news of his cousin’s pregnancy when he heard there was a dead body (or rather, half a dead body!) somewhere in the preserve. Then his best friend got bitten by an insane alpha werewolf and… things just went downhill after that.

Things got insane the following months: even with werewolves, hunters, and everything else, Stiles still managed to pool his savings (from his job doing research for other people’s college papers; he didn’t write the papers himself, just did the research, and put it all together comprehensively so other people could write the actual papers, so it technically wasn’t illegal), and get his dad’s permission to make a weekend trip to New York near the end of the summer to meet Mirele’s baby boy and to officially become his godfather.

“Meet Eli Mieszko Wyatt, your godson,” Mirele announced as she placed the tiny baby in his arms.

He was so small, and so light, a part of Stiles was terrified he might drop him, or hurt him, or just hold him wrong. But Mirele was absolutely certain he wouldn’t, and she was right.

Also, learning his cousin had named her son after him (just the middle name, but still!) he was absolutely floored by that, even more than he’d been when learning that she wanted him to be the baby’s godfather.

Perhaps the only moment of sadness through it all was learning the baby daddy wasn’t around.

“He doesn’t even know about Eli,” Mirele told him. “I never got the chance to tell him. After that video call we had back in early January… I waited for him to show up at the cafe for several days. When he didn’t I went looking for him at the auto shop, even asked Tyler for his address… there was nothing. All I could find out was that he was gone, had left New York entirely. Someone at his apartment building said a moving service had shown up at some point in February to pack up the apartment, and he never came back.”

“Did you try calling him?” Stiles asked softly.

“I don’t have his number, I never did,” Mirele shrugged. “I told you there was nothing serious between us. I… I wasn’t looking for him because I expected anything from him. Considering the building he lived in, I don’t think he has much anyway. I just… I thought he deserved to know he was going to have a kid.”

Stiles nodded, he agreed with that. If he happened to impregnate someone, even if it wasn’t planned, he’d definitely want to know!

“Especially because he’s a shifter and I know how seriously they all take the matter of family, pack and all that,” Mirele added after a moment.

The words shifter and pack, tickled something in the back of Stiles’ mind, as he thought about the wolves in Beacon Hills. One of whom was living in NY until recently. But… that wasn’t possible, was it? No, he clearly remembered Mirele saying the baby-daddy was called Sebastian, not Derek, so it really wasn’t possible. The world wasn’t that small, or that insane, right?

In any case, that was the highlight of his summer; a big deal considering that he’d spent most of it either recovering from an insane psychopath’s beating (And yeah, he kept intentionally baiting the old bastard, fully aware of the consequences for doing so, but what else could he do to protect Erica and Boyd? Though to be fair, it had looked far worse than it had been… or rather, he’d more endurance than any of those stupid hunters probably expected him to. The only reason he did not, truly fight back, was because he hadn’t known just how many there might be, and he didn’t want to run the risk of someone killing the betas before Stiles could rescue them, so he decided to provoke and endure, rather than truly fight back. It worked, for the most part.) or pestering Derek Hale so the brooding alpha would let the human try and help him search for his missing betas.

That… that was the part that had hurt Stiles most. Not so much that he had to practically beg Derek to let him help; that part he fully understood, after the absolutely terrible thing Scott did to him… a betrayal in every sense of the word. Stiles understood Derek not being sure he could trust Stiles. It did hurt, a little bit, because Stiles had fought so hard to earn the wolf’s trust in the months prior to that, and it felt like he was back to square one, and all because of Scott’s stupidity. And the worst part was that Scott seemed to not realize how awful his actions were (either that or he did not care, but Stiles really, really hoped that it was the former).

In any case, it wasn’t him having to convince Derek that hurt him most, no, it was the fact that Erica and Boyd were missing. Chris Argent insisted he’d let the betas go (and the human was willing to believe it, mostly. If any of the Argents could be said to be the best of a really bad bunch, it was probably Chris… Not that that was saying much considering how awful the rest of the Argents truly were, Allison included!). Point was, they’d left the Argent murder basement, but they never made it to their alpha, and no one had the slightest idea of where they might be.

In the following months, when so much went to hell, Stiles would remind himself of Mirele and baby Eli, with his bright green eyes, his big smile… whenever he needed a reason to keep going, to keep fighting when it seemed like everything that could go wrong did. At times that image (and the pictures he kept hidden, heavily encrypted, in a virtual cloud) were the only things keeping him going. Especially when a fucking demon took him over and things went so, so wrong.

Stiles felt like an absolute failure in the aftermath of the nogitsune.

It’s… that thing was a fucking demon. He’d been trained on how to fight fucking demons! Granted, he technically never finished his training; he did all the basics, of course, but the kind of stuff that could only be done once he was older, fully grown, he never got around that. Never went on any missions either. Still, he tried so hard! He did everything he absolutely could, fought like hell to keep control of himself, of his body, to keep the fox out… In the end, he lost.

It was until after everything was over. Until so many of their own were gone (some to death, others simply because they couldn’t be in Beacon Hills anymore) that Stiles stopped to consider why everything had happened, exactly.

He knew about demons, he knew about possession, and even though he wasn’t a magic-user, had never been interested in his so-called spark (and that was, by now, a pointless endeavor, as the stupid-fox had burned his magic out of him… or perhaps it was rather that Stiles himself burned the magic out in the process of expelling the demon from his body), he shouldn’t have been that… that vulnerable, that open to possession, unless… Unless someone arranged it that way.

“Fucking Deaton,” Stiles muttered, furious.

He couldn’t prove it. It was far too late for that. And even if he could, he was sure the moment he said anything even slightly negative about the supposed druid, Scott would immediately jump in his defense. Even if that meant turning on Stiles, his so-called best-friend. Stiles wasn’t even surprised anymore by how easily Scott would turn on him.

However, that meant if he wanted to be sure it wouldn’t happen again, he’d have to take steps himself. He remembered the idea he’d once had, for that tattoo on his arm… he wondered if Scott remembered, if perhaps that was even why he chose to get his own tattoo (which, Stiles still had no idea what that thing was even supposed to mean, like, a circle within a circle? Like a target?!). In any case, he didn’t want to get a tattoo and have someone so much as imply that he was trying to copy Scott in any way. So he changed his plans. Then he went looking for his dad.

If he were to wait a bit longer, until his eighteenth birthday, he wouldn’t have even needed to broach the topic with his father. But considering everything that had already happened in less than a year that they’d all been involved in one supernatural disaster after another, he didn’t want to risk something else happening before his birthday, and him not being ready.

“I want to get a tattoo,” he told his dad one afternoon.

For a moment his dad just blinked. Then he sat down and asked Stiles to explain. Stiles had everything planned out already. It was a mix of five major Celtic symbols. The main part of it would be the Celtic Tree of Life, surrounded by a circle of his preferred version of the Dara Celtic knot; amid the roots of the trees he planned to include several triquetras, each of them representing a member of his family that was important to him (his mom, his dad, Mirele, Eli…), while up in the branches, he had a number of triskelions representing the Hale pack (His Pack!); finally, on the actual trunk of the tree, taking center stage, would be the Serch Bythol. That… he wasn’t entirely certain why, it was meant to be a symbol of love, everlasting love, the kind that existed between soulmates. And while Stiles wouldn’t lie to himself and admitted there was someone he saw… or at least would like to see that way, that did not mean that person saw him the same way. Still, it felt… right, for the symbol to be part of it all. So he included it, despite not being absolutely certain of what it represented, exactly.

His dad was clearly stunned by what Stiles wanted, the size and the obvious detail. He insisted on helping Stiles research tattoo parlors (Stiles looking for one that would have magic, in order to ensure the runes would work as intended, while his dad made sure they were clean and following all the laws and regulations).

Noah was also there on the day Stiles got the tattoo done. It was big, taking most of his back, and there was no doubt it would look fantastic once it was finished. He was given the option to get it done in parts, in several sessions, but Stiles decided he’d rather have it done all right away.

“Your mother had several tattoos, you know?” Noah commented quietly.

“I remember,” Stiles nodded quietly.

She had some Celtic knot symbols, just like Stiles, on various parts of her body, but also others… like the silhouette of three birds on her collarbone, for her three brothers; a red poppy flower on her ankle for her mother; and the silhouette of a tiny angel low on her belly (it was only in that very moment, as Stiles thought back on it, that he realized what that tattoo must have been for, her lost baby girl…).

“Your mom knew about all of this, didn’t she?” Noah’s question took Stiles completely by surprise. “Was part of… all of it. You both were.”

For a moment there Stiles didn’t know how to answer his dad. He always knew there was a chance that one day his dad would make the connection, and yet he just wasn’t prepared. At the same time, after finally sitting down with his dad in the aftermath of the Alpha Pack and the darach, after finally being honest with him and telling him everything that’d been happening in the last few months, Stiles promised, both to the older man and to himself, that he wouldn’t lie to him anymore.

“Mom used to be a part of it, yes,” Stiles nodded. “And I… I was training to take the place she once held, the place my uncles held. Only I never finished my training.”

“She gave it up when she married me?” Noah guessed. “She loved me that much?”

Stiles nodded, a knot in his throat keeping him from being able to say anything else. And really, what else could they have said?

xXx

They didn’t talk about it, any of it again, until after the mess with the Ghost Riders was over. Once Stiles was back and they were all recovering from the absolute mess that’d taken place. Dealing with the fact that despite the fact that this particular disaster had involved a fair amount of people in Beacon Hills, most of them didn’t seem to be aware that anything had happened at all. Almost as if nothing had.

It was really bizarre, Stiles had talked with a number of people, had checked calendars and… it was almost as if no time had passed at all, even before he himself was taken. As if they, all of them, the whole town, had been in some kind of time-loop where they believed time was passing, and they were going through the motions, until the emergency was over and then, no time had actually passed at all.

Stiles had barely missed one or two days of class, mostly while he was busy running around trying to solve everything, instead of the weeks he had been trapped in that ghostly-waystation. The worst part was even he’d started having trouble remembering things clearly. Almost as if a part of him remembered the time he was trapped, but there was another part of him that just… couldn’t. He wondered if it was some kind of defensive mechanism from the Wild Hunt, an attempt to ensure the shadow-world would not be revealed to the mundane humans even when they happened to end up accidentally involved.

“You know how I knew it wasn’t your mom?” His dad asked out of nowhere.

“Huh?” Stiles was completely thrown by the comment.

“Gotta admit that, as convincing as Miss Martin tried to be, it wasn’t her that did it,” Noah explained. “It was… I’d just come home from a shift on… I don’t even remember what day it was supposed to be. But I came into the kitchen and Claudia… or the thing pretending to be her, was just standing there, in front of the stove, cooking.”

Stiles blinked because, what?

“She was Just Standing There,” Noah emphasized. “Your mother never just… stood, anywhere. Especially not in the kitchen.”

No, she didn’t. Stiles realized then what his dad meant. It was the one thing he always remembered about his mom, how she was always moving, how she always seemed to be dancing…

“That’s how I knew that… whatever that thing was, it wasn’t my wife, it wasn’t my Claudia,” Noah declared soberly.

Stiles didn’t even think about it, he threw his arms around his dad and for a long while the two Stilinski men just held each other tightly.

“I never asked why you… quit your trips to Europe, your training in… whatever you were into back then,” Noah murmured eventually. “I’m not gonna ask now, just… I know you used to train with your mom. Whatever it was you were training for. I know you can fight. I just… I want you to fight.”

Stiles blinked. Out of all the things his dad could have said, he wasn’t expecting that.

“I’m still not happy you’re involved in… all of this.” Noah explained. “But much as I might hate to admit it, this isn’t something I can protect you from, kid. Even being fully aware of things now, even being fully armed, I know there are battles I cannot fight for you. Much as I might really, truly hate it. So I want to know that if it becomes necessary, you’ll fight. You’ll fight and you’ll win. Whatever it takes.”

Stiles… for a moment he wondered if his dad knew what he was saying, what he was asking his son to commit to, but then again, his father was no fool. He’d understood from the very beginning that the shadow-world followed different rules from the ones he was used to. That justice and ‘the law’ didn’t work the same way when shifters, and hunters and magic were involved. He didn’t like it, but he accepted it. So he had to know the implications of what he was asking Stiles.

“Whatever it takes,” he insisted.

“Whatever it takes,” Stiles finally agreed.

It was that choice, that promise to his father, that led to Stiles no longer standing back. No longer letting himself just get beaten and be content with just being able to stand back up. He no longer backed down, or stood down, he pushed forth, he fought back, he fought hard, and he won.

Not everyone could handle the consequences of that change in mindset.

Stiles knew from the start he wasn’t to blame for the lives the nogitsune took. He knew that, no matter how much some people distrusted him after all that, how some might even go as far as to claim it had been his fault because he let the fucking void-fox in… What the hell did any of them know about that anyway?! Noshiko, the woman who was actually a kitsune and, being the one who’d summoned the fucking demon in the first place ought to have known the most about it, agreed there was nothing Stiles could have done. She might have tried to kill him, but that had never been about him, just that she hadn’t seen a way of defeating the fox and saving Stiles (much like how Derek had seen the situation back when the kanima was roaming). Stiles didn’t take it personally.

Then again, the ones most insistent on blaming Stiles for the nogitsune were Scott and Deaton. And that said something, didn’t it?

There was a part of Stiles that thought he should mourn the loss of a pack, of the McCall Pack but… had they ever been his pack? Had Scott ever truly considered him pack? He didn’t think so. It was actually something he’d fought him on, more than once, the way the other boy was always pushing him away, always making him less; asking for Stiles’ help, and then ignoring his suggestions, his plans, because what did Stiles know? He was only human!

Ever their friendship, Stiles had long considered Scott his best-friend, almost his brother, but as time passed, he grew up and started seeing things in a different light. Was Scott truly his best friend? Or even a friend, at all? Had he ever been? There was a part of him that couldn’t help but feel like maybe all along it had been less about Scott being his best-friend, and more that he’d been his only friend… Only that wasn’t true anymore. These days he had other friends, good friends: like Derek, Malia (she might be his ex, but she was also his friend), Mirele, hell even Peter was a friend these days!

In the end, he could only hope that once they’d dealt with Monroe and her army, things would get better. That woman was a risk, not just to their pack, nor to Beacon Hills, but to the whole of the shadow-world. She needed to be stopped, for everyone’s sake. And if Stiles had to be the one to stop her… then so be it.

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